In the manufacture of tissue products, such as facial tissue, bath tissue, paper towels and the like, the use of a throughdrying process is well known. In general, the throughdrying process involves passing hot air through a dewatered tissue web while the web is supported by a throughdrying fabric. More specifically, the fabric-supported web is dried while it is maintained in contact with a rotating throughdrying drum, which supplies the hot drying air. Depending upon the particular process, the dried web can be subsequently creped or left uncreped.
However, the current throughdrying methods are dependent upon throughdrying fabrics to provide the desired texture and structure to the resulting tissue product. The designs of such fabrics are limited by the inherent nature of the weaving process and the properties of the filaments used to weave the fabrics. A particular problem associated with many filament materials is their inability to withstand high temperatures. Of course, as efforts continue to increase the productivity of throughdrying tissue making machines, there is an incentive to be able to increase dryer temperatures and drying energy efficiency and shorten drying times. However, the throughdrying fabric is a limiting factor due to several reasons such as temperature degradation, loss of latent heat in each revolution of the dryer, etc.
Therefore there is a need for a method of improving the drying efficiency of throughdrying tissue machines.